He was charged Thursday with sexual exploitation of a child. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

According to an FBI affidavit, McLellan came to the attention of authorities in December 2009 when an agent signed into a peer-to-peer file sharing network and was able to trace shared directories and files to a user name associated with McLellan.

In February 2010, the FBI obtained a search warrant for McLellan's apartment and seized computers and other electronic devices that contained child pornography images and videos. It was not clear if McClellan had hired a lawyer.